


Remedy For The Heart

by Anonymous



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apothecaries, Developing Relationship, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Limited Magic, Mild Blood, Mild Sexual Content, Please Don't Kill Me, Romance, Selectively Mute My Unit | Byleth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:28:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28566963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: There’s a soft spot in everyone, it just takes a bit of work to find.Byleth thinks she sees a few of them in Edelgard and somewhere (maybe beyond that thorny wall she holds around her so tightly) there might be a little room to squeeze in one perpetually friendless mercenary.-((On hiatus while I get my shit together :3))
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 96
Collections: Anonymous





	1. It’s All But Cynicism, Sweetheart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The term "apothecary" is used in reference to the individual preparing medicines and their shop, so as to not cause any confusion.

“ _Hresvelg Apothecary”_

Is what the sign glares down at her. 

Byleth was carried into Fhirdiad on a winter’s breeze and a cloudy morning that left the lightest threats of snow hanging in the thin haze that fell over the city like a spiteful fog. Hoarfrost found its home clinging mischievously to the plating of any rooftops and icicles dangled like glistening stalactites from the overhangs. 

The city was as much a living thing as any creature, despite the tender dawn that was only just beginning to usher in the sun from its voyage across the horizon. 

Merchants bark and snap in grisly voices, calling out their wares and trying to steal the glance of any passing traveler that didn’t know better than to move on fast enough. Horses clop steady rhythms against the clumpy stone roads, their owners offering the occasional snort or grunt of complaint sounding awful much like their steeds. The streets themselves are the veins of Fhirdiad, packed with swarming bodies as people try working their way through the crowd, some dare to hold loud conversations over the general buzz; and yet most words are snatched away into the thrum of life. 

The cold made people irritable - more so than usual - and there are great huffs of chilled sighs into the bitter air and forced breaths into the cupped hands of workers trying to aid their frost nipped fingers.

Byleth stands to the side of it all, for the apothecary is tucked into an isolated nook far enough away that there was no risk of being swept away by the waves that shoulder-check their way through the street. 

The shop was a solidly built yet short thing, curious with the lack of fanfare or decoration, just business-like - it’s something she can appreciate. 

Byleth lingers at the door, concentrated entirely on the thin leather bound notebook she rarely had use of. Usually the thing was slung somewhere in a saddlebag and pulled free for the sake of her employers. It beckoned a laugh out of most people - an apathetic one - when they arrived at the reason for its use. 

She takes another moment to print her mind into the paper, she’s slow in it as her penmanship is sloppy otherwise, and once she’s satisfied she pushes her way through the heavy door. 

A bell chimes her arrival and startles her bad enough that she jumps, her body launching into the electric panic that causes her to stumble and flail until she’s tripping over her own boots and trying desperately not to land cleanly on her ass. 

“You're a light-footed one.”

The voice is carried from somewhere in the backroom and it’s nothing at all in resemblance to the usual bass-oriented rumbles of Faerghus people. It takes a moment for Byleth to decipher the words from the thick tangle of a soft-voweled accent. 

She recovers herself as much as she’s able and shuffles her way towards the counter, the tips of her ears growing warm. 

The apothecary was almost a separate world from the rest of the city. Little of the chatter from outside managed to work itself through the walls, instead being replaced with the gurgling of something being brought to a boil and the quiet _tink_ of glass.

Everything is dark aging wood and brass, as if the shop has stood here for a hundred years and was prepared to root its stubborn shelves into the gray roads to stand a hundred more. 

Glass bottles of different structures lined the walls, filled with liquids that made a dull, neutral rainbow of color spread along the shop. She can’t make sense of them, of what each does, and the labels that hang around the necks of a scarce few of them read in a language that clicks to nothing in her mind.

The owner of the cool voice makes an appearance, stepping through the doorway of the backroom and not sparing Byleth a glance before moving to quest through the shelves’ contents.

She’s a solid cut of Byleth’s height but it’s nothing to brag at considering she, herself, wasn’t gifted much in the way of loftiness. A river of umber hair is pinched into a low ponytail that rides down her back and speaks proudly of someone who has cared carefully after it for many years. She’s modestly dressed, yet a knitted shawl that hugs over her shoulders is a deep shade of red that makes itself a centerpiece to the room’s color. 

“Do you have a prescription?” 

Byleth fumbles with the slips of paper that had been left wrinkled in her grip. She makes an effort to smooth them out but the apothecary reaches an arm back and steals them away before she’s given the opportunity to make them presentable. 

She’s left to rock on her heels while the apothecary reads over the physician’s notes, finally turning to face Byleth in full. 

Her eyes are colored a hard thistle and prick at Byleth to the same extent. She levels a mathematical stare over her, one that shoves the extents of professionalism firmly against the borders of dehumanizing. 

“It isn’t often that a sellsword finds themselves for want of sleeping aids.” She muses, her tone straight and objective. “What’s the matter? Your conscience bothering you at night?” 

The apothecary speaks the words like they hold nothing but air, but the remark catches Byleth in the chest. 

It’s not a question she had been prepared for and she flips through her notebook till she reaches a fresh page, working a response onto the page as best she’s able with shy fingers. 

_“I’m a mercenary, not an assassin. There is little blood on my hands and my conscience is, fortunately, clear.”_

Byleth holds the notebook up and lets the apothecary squint at it. She raises one dark eyebrow in her confusion, but lets it fall after a moment, humming a contemplative note before straightening the glasses affixed to the bridge of her nose. 

“Does the guiltless mercenary know how to sign?” 

Byleth nods stiffly, trying to ease some of the tension from her hands. 

_“I do.”_

“Good.” 

And that was all on the matter.

“Your ‘doctor’,” the apothecary begins once more, scrutinizing the prescription further with a sudden shine of mirth coming to her features in the form of a sarcastic curl of her lip as she reads. “May I ask where it was you found them?”

_“He was a traveling physician, I met him outside of town.”_

“I see. You aren’t from around here, are you?” 

To this Byleth wants to reply that the apothecary likely isn’t either, but she figures it wouldn’t be a wise thing to mention and instead shakes her head. 

_“Why does it matter?_ ”

“He prescribed you dwale.”

Byleth nods along and places her luck to the forefront in the hopes that her puzzlement isn’t entirely obvious. 

The apothecary’s face steels back into unamusement. “It’s a potion containing hemlock. If you’d like to sleep better then I can assure you that’s exactly what would happen, the only issue is that you’d likely never wake up.” 

_“So you mean…”_

“You’ve been swindled.” 

Byleth blinks owlishly at nothing, reaching down to cup the coin purse strapped to her belt. It had been heavy and stretching the seams with gold after a particularly generous reward from her last job in the Fraldarius region, now it's mostly a limp scrap of leather. Visiting a physician was costly, she figured - things did always seem to be more expensive in Faerghus - but she wasn’t one to haggle for obvious reasons. 

Now things seem to make a lot more sense. 

“A dose of skepticism would do you better than anything I can make,” The apothecary remarks under a sigh. “There’s a clinic not far from here owned by a rather well-known doctor, pay her a visit when next you feel the need.” 

Byleth nods once in acknowledgement, hiking her shoulders up further and rubbing at her arm absentmindedly. 

_“I apologize. Thank you, in any case.”_

The apothecary clicks her tongue, giving her a look of disinclination. “A remedy for insomnia is nothing complicated. If nothing else I have a tea blend that would help, to some degree.” 

Byleth perks. _“How much is it?”_

“Don’t worry over the payment, it’s just tea.” 

Byleth stutters her fingers down to the purse regardless, fishing for as many of the coins she can manage to scoop into her palm. 

“Some mercenary you must be,” The apothecary comments wryly. “If someone offers you something for free; you take it.” 

_“I’m just practicing some of that skepticism you mentioned. I’d rather not be in your debt should we meet again.”_

The apothecary’s features soften for the brevity of a heartbeat, chisel-sharp eyes reduce to the simplicity of human consideration and the turn of her lips settle into a relaxed neutrality. 

That moment flutters overhead before Byleth can fully catch hold of it and leaves her with a wingbeat curiosity that floats from the top of her chest and into the drums of her ribcage. 

“It’s not a bad attitude to have, but direct it in the right place. I’ll not have you in my debt over some leaves.”

Byleth isn’t offered a choice outside of believing her. 

The apothecary sets to work procuring a variety of unfamiliar herbs that Byleth can’t even begin to distinguish from the sort that she would trample over like grass normally. It’s not a very intriguing process, watching the apothecary prepare them with a mortar and pestle, but it's easy to lose herself to the gentle sounds of the herbs being ground and the neat movements of the woman’s hands. 

_“What is your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”_ It’s a simple question that had been oversighted, but their introductions had been left to the tactlessness of Byleth’s entrance and naivety. 

The apothecary looks up from her work long enough to read her hands and nothing more. She’s quiet for a long time and Byleth thinks she may have - miraculously - crossed some sort of line through the inquiry. 

“Edelgard.” She fingerspells it out for her slowly and Byleth takes it and tucks it into the embraces of her often fleeting memory. 

_“I’m Byleth.”_

“Charmed.” 

She says it dry and unenthusiastic as sawdust and as chilly as the brewing winter outside, letting Byleth and her name steep in the gaping canyon of silence that follows. 

She kicks the toe of her boot against the heel of the other, threading her fingers together at the back of her waist. It’s hard to look anywhere but at the woman before her, but staring would likely earn her another snap from Edelgard’s tongue - which so far seemed to exist primarily for the purposes of quick education and stinging. 

_“Have you owned this place for long?”_

“Not particularly.”

She waits to see if there will be any elaboration, but none ever comes. Byleth and the fault of conversations are close in nature, most communication had been swiped from her early and she had no place in her where it left a wanting hole, but for what it was worth most people did _try_ for small talk if nothing else. 

She supposes Edelgard may not be “most people” and perhaps they were both left stranded outside of that particular category. 

An odd comfort.

It doesn’t take the apothecary long to situate the herbs into a large teabag and the instructions to drink a cup before retiring in the evening. 

“I know my work, and I don’t think we’ll meet again for some time,” Edelgard says, placing her ingredients back into the respective shelves she had designated. “When you require more, feel free to stop by, although I held some pity for you this time on the next occasion - should there be one - I will require some form of compensation.

“And,” she gives Byleth a look over her shoulder that has no recognizable expression. “Try to avoid getting yourself scammed if you can help it, sellsword.” 

Byleth withholds the sheepishness in favor of gratitude. 

When she steps outside it’s almost warmer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is to be a pretty short work where I have my fun with a “I swear I don’t care about you” cold/ “I really like you but I'm slow on the uptake” warm dynamic that got out of control and couldn’t fit easily into a oneshot. Chapter length is a wild animal that runs around and digs in your garbage cans and I can’t pin it down to anything specific, they're not usually this short.
> 
> It's my comfort fic, let me have it.


	2. The Nature of Needles and Skittish Mercenaries

“Some time” found its place two weeks after Byleth met her.

Her blood slides in warm trails down her arm and back, flows easily despite the glove she has clasped over her shoulder and she’s dizzy - so, so terribly dizzy. 

She feels someone else’s drying on her face, sticky and binding itself to her skin, making it feel tighter. Like ink, just so much heavier. Theirs has long since gone cold, hers still soaks through her clothes and runs the length of her torso, her legs, her sword; she’s not dead yet. 

It corrupts white snow, staining it red in the depressions she leaves behind as she plods forward.

Walking is a slow affair - if she falls it’ll be hard to right herself - so she takes her time; makes sure each step is a careful one and that it’s in the right direction. 

She can see the golden glow of the city’s streetlights and is equal parts repulsed by and drawn to them. 

Byleth’s mind is somewhere else, not in her head for certain, maybe somewhere in one of the footprints she left behind. It’s hard to call it back, but it’ll catch up, she thinks.

It usually does.

Her impulse has snatched control instead, it’s got the reins for now and will probably hold on to them until she can finally collapse; she mostly hopes that it decides on someplace where she won’t be hurt further. 

She doesn’t know much else besides the simple commands needed to keep going forward, which she issues manually at infrequent intervals despite the protest from her knees. Her destination is the tavern she’s been tucking herself away in, she has a vague idea of how to get there, it’s just a matter of execution.

Medical knowledge? It’s pretty limited, if she’s to be honest. The physician isn’t available at this hour, she recalls from some part of her memory. Not that she knows what hour it is, but she can hazard a guess from the stars that twirl in slow, lazy circles over her head. 

With the way that her head spins, it’s almost like they’re dancing. 

Better to not look up, she realizes, because when she brings her eyes back down she sways to one side and nearly loses her balance. It evokes nausea that stews in her stomach and infects her chest, but she can’t find the will to double over and retch. 

Something tells her to pull it together and so she tries, one quivering footstep at a time. 

It’s like this until she’s walking on a road rather than crunching over snow, which is considerably more dangerous with all of the cracks her shoes could catch on. 

It would be embarrassing if she fell and split her head, and somehow that’s enough of a motivator to keep her cautious. 

The streets are blissfully empty, save for a few stragglers who are likely too drunk to notice the bloodied figure that wobbles by - their movements match so they probably don’t think much other than Byleth’s just as intoxicated as them. 

There is someone a bit behind her, though, and she doesn’t acknowledge much besides the sounds of heeled footfalls clicking on the stone and a voice raised too loud. 

She would cover her ears and try to block it out - because it really _is_ messing with her coordination - but she’s tired and just wants to get back to the tavern so she can sink into her mattress and sleep until the taste of pain is off the roof of her mouth. 

That _voice_ raises and she’s growing more irritable with it, footsteps get louder and closer and she feels her free hand twitch to the hilt of her sword. 

“ _Byleth!_ ” 

She spins on her heel in the same beat she feels a hand on her arm, sword drawn and a displeased sound rumbling in her throat before she remembers why trying to move fast isn’t a good idea. 

The world rolls to one side and her right leg suddenly doesn’t have any weight on it. 

That’s probably not good.

Her body leans and her sword clatters somewhere she can’t see. The sky falls into her vision as the ground rushes towards her. Her shoulder is going to hit it first and it’s going to hurt. Badly. 

That impact doesn’t come, instead of the ground she’s met with two arms bracing her - surprisingly steady despite her weight. 

Her vision clears enough to distinguish the pale face of the apothecary. Edelgard? That was her name, right? 

She has abandoned the glasses Byleth recalls her having, she looks younger without them, but apparently traded them for a baffled expression that feels out of place for her. 

Her arm presses into the wound with the way she’s holding her and Byleth squirms, a pained cry fought off with the little piece of her conscience that has the nerve to try and pretend she’s tougher than she is. 

Edelgard catches on and pulls her up, gently in a way Byleth wouldn’t have expected, and doesn’t let her go until she’s balanced - or as much as she can be. 

“What happened to you?” She asks, says it so strongly Byleth can’t just ignore the question and keep walking like she wants to.

 _“Fell,”_ comes the sloppy gesture.

“Very funny.” Her eyes harden back into frosty analysis, but she doesn’t question it further and that’s all that really matters. “Where are you going? The physician lives on another street, it’s late but I’m sure she’ll see you.” 

_“Bed. I’m tired. Thanks for catching me. Sorry for pointing my sword at you. Goodnight.”_

She doesn’t know if she signed the mess of sentences correctly and doesn’t think to care, instead turning - slowly - to the sword in question that she dropped. 

When she bends to pick it up she staggers forward and meets the ground in a thud that sparks up to her skull and makes her groan weakly. 

Warm hands tug her to her feet once more, and she feels the weight of the weapon sliding back into its sheath with a sharp sound. 

Edelgard pulls at her arm and says something foreign to Byleth’s ears, but she knows a swear when she hears one.

“Come on,” she snaps, leading Byleth who follows with uneasy steps. “Goddess knows how you’ve lived this long.” 

They reach the apothecary’s threshold with some effort, mostly on Edelgard’s part, and she launches into an unintelligible mutter while brandishing her key ring. 

_“I thought we were going to the physician?”_

She raises her voice just long enough to answer her with a “not anymore.” 

Byleth is dragged inside, past the counter and into the backroom. Candles are lit with aggravation and more swears before a wooden stool is pulled from a corner and she’s being shoved down onto it. 

“Stay,” Edelgard commands, and Byleth certainly does feel like some unruly dog giving her mistress too much trouble. 

She leaves the room and Byleth busies herself with pressing her hand over the wound and shifting around uncomfortably. Her eyes feel heavy and her head keeps nodding, the black spots at the edges of her vision are persuasive in the argument for sleep - if only to escape the pain in her shoulder...just for a little bit. 

“Don’t get too comfortable, sellsword.”

She shakes herself awake and flinches at the suddenness of Edelgard’s hands roaming the expanse of her back. 

“What the hell,” she mumbles under a breath. “I...how much of this blood is yours?” 

_“Most of it.”_

She finds the gash in her shoulder just fine and Byleth lurches forward instinctively, nearly toppling off the stool. 

“Easy,” Edelgard says in a half-hearted attempt to soothe her. She pulls the thick coat from Byleth’s shoulders, gingerly edging her way around the ruined flesh so as to not garner a similar response. Once it’s off, there’s a long pause where she neither touches Byleth nor speaks. 

“I’m going to have to cut your shirt off to avoid irritating it.” 

There’s no coherent thought on Byleth’s end to accompany that statement, she just goes rigid while scissors clip through fabric and warm air coasts over her clammy skin in a way that makes her shudder. It’s only when the remnants of her tunic scatter to the ground that she has the sense of mind to wrap her arms across her chest. 

Something sloshes and she feels a rag on her in place of hands, warm water spills down her back and it's enough to make her whimper. 

Edelgard cleans her slowly, methodically, and while Byleth can’t see exactly what she’s doing or her reactions, she gathers that it's not her first time dealing with the sort of injuries she begins to uncover. 

It's quiet between them, save for the few times she has to settle Byleth after running over someplace tender and the sounds of her dipping the cloth back into water, and she starts to recover her head in bits and pieces. 

To her credit, Edelgard warns her before trying to touch the cut - gives her a moment to process it, even - but it doesn’t stop Byleth from jerking forward and batting her hand away in a movement more violent than she would ever make if she weren’t so high strung. 

It _hurts_ , and she’s still trying to rebound from whatever state she goes into when she leaves on a job, casting a line for the common sense she knows she has but it’s still too early to try and reel it in. 

She meets Edelgard’s eye over her shoulder and finds nothing but calm composure, unbothered and uncaring, and maybe it’s the fact that she’s so tranquil about it that makes Byleth feel stupid.

_“Sorry.”_

“I have to clean it, you know. Try to relax, please.” 

And she tries - it takes a few - a few more times for her to jolt, a few more times for Edelgard to calm her, and a few more times for her to make some weird, throaty noise that she realizes sounds so _dumb_. But she does lose some of that tension eventually, and finally lets the apothecary touch the wound. 

She’s gentle and swift about it, and Byleth starts to feel the flames of embarrassment swell into her face with how she’s overreacted. 

Edelgard leaves again, returns a good deal of time later with a metal tray. There’s a few things Byleth recognizes; a small pair of forceps, another pair of scissors… a needle and thread. Things click and she starts finding breath a hard thing to draw. 

She’s had stitches once before when she was younger. The experience didn’t go over well for her nor the medic of her old mercenary company who was administering them. 

She shakes her head, hunches herself over, and shies away when Edelgard takes a step towards her. 

“Byleth.”

The way Edelgard says her name is wholly different from anything Byleth’s ever heard, kneaded to fit the mold of the apothecary’s articulation, but the fact that she’s dropped “sellsword” likely means she’s starting to wear thin on her patience.

“It needs to be sutured.” 

_“Can’t you just bandage it? I don’t...I don’t like needles.”_ Her hands are unsteady and she’s signing too fast, too messily, but the apothecary manages to understand.

Edelgard gives her a huff of dry laughter. “You carry around a sword with you, and apparently use it contrary to what I believed, but you’re scared of a needle?” 

_“Is there anything else you could do? Please.”_

She falters with that, and Byleth hopes that maybe she can squirm her way out of this one.

_“Please.”_

Edelgard walks to stand before her, Byleth shudders back as far as she’s able and finds a spot between her boots to focus a stare. 

“Look at me.”

She really doesn’t want to. 

Delicate fingers lift her chin and she’s forced to meet mauve eyes. 

“The laceration is too deep and you’ve lost too much blood. If we were to take you to the physician I’m positive you’d receive the same response.” She tucks a lock of Byleth’s hair behind her ear, it would feel oddly intimate if not for the placidness of Edelgard’s expression. She can’t work unless Byleth is calm. “I don’t have anything to sedate or numb you. This is going to hurt, but if it gets infected I won’t be able to help you.” 

There are dark circles under her eyes, probably not singularly from the fact that Byleth was keeping her awake this night, but it makes her conscious of how this must look from her perspective.

_“Okay.”_

She’s half-tempted to add on with “please try to be gentle” but then realizes how pathetic and dense it would seem. 

Byleth watches her over her shoulder, eyes trained mostly on the needle she threads, but Edelgard gently urges her head forward. “Don’t look.” 

Each time she drives the point through it’s accompanied by a hissing breath through clenched teeth and sometimes a low, soft cry when she feels her skin being tugged. 

It’s worse by tenfold in comparison to the only other time she’s had an injury stitched, but she’s better about not lashing out or twitching. Time drags its sorry feet and she does everything she can to mentally abandon herself, just until the procedure is over. 

Though it feels like some years later, it does eventually stop. Edelgard bandages her and she’s allowed an awkward pat to the part of her back where no wounds lay and some lukewarm praise that falls just short of being mocking. 

The superficial cuts on her face are tended to after and it’s then that the reality of being half-naked begins to set in. There’s no helping the burning of her ears, and gradually the whole of her face, as she’s patched.

She doesn’t let Edelgard uncross her arms to reach the single abrasion on her sternum. 

It’s a long walk back to the tavern and she spends most of it trying to reason herself out of leaving the city that same night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAH! It took three tries but I finally got this chapter together. Honestly, it would've been out around two days after the first but since I'm winging this fic it means that scenes are often shuffled around haphazardly and the other two that I tried felt very...wrong somehow. 
> 
> This one was meant to be had later on but I started going for it in a "why not?" sort of moment and it kind of clicked so here we go. I'm still not entirely happy with it but I literally refuse to touch anything labeled "chapter two" on my drive again. 
> 
> Deepest apologies to any of you who know anything about medicine or first aid because I know fuck all outside of what Google can tell me within a ten minute span and a basic anatomy class I took three years ago. Yea I didn't think this idea through very well.


	3. Early Mornings I'd Rather (Not) Spend With You

Stitches, as Byleth discovers, can still hurt even when a needle isn’t present. They worry her until she’s sufficiently frustrated with herself for ever being wounded in the first place.

It’s dark and foggy when she finally gives up on trying to slip into sleep for longer than an hour at a time. She sets to work replacing her bandages - a certain tact notably absent - and decides she’d rather face Fhirdiad’s winter instead.

She pulls her boots on and makes an attempt to ignore the way they’re damp after snow has set into the soles while she laces them. A moth-bitten coat is shrugged on and a hood flipped over her head, needing to be adjusted so it doesn’t fall over her eyes. She pulls a new pair of thicker gloves up to the wrist and doesn’t care that they’re inside-out. 

Attire fit for an audience with the king, she figures. 

The cold is chewing away at her before she even makes it outside, and despite the layers she’d put on, her jaw still starts itself into a chatter that she doesn’t fight. It reminds her boldly that, yes, Fhirdiad is unreasonably frigid and she needs to live with it. 

She’s begun to pick up on the sixth sense that Faerghus people seem to have for an ice storm about to roll in, it licks at the back of her teeth and warns against traveling far, at least until it’s blown over. 

It’s early and the sun still has some time before it can bring mercy to her thawing body, but there are restless souls who seem to share in on her suffering, up before the light is and signal the beginnings of the usual clamor. 

Byleth drags along to the stables, the only thing she could reliably find her way to without having to double over her own tracks at least thrice. 

A ragged-looking groom totting two pails on each arm meets her eye and grunts in a greeting that Byleth can’t find the power in her throat to return. Spend enough time around horses and maybe she might start to sound like them too. 

She finds what she’s looking for easy enough and slides into one of the only occupied stalls where a fuzzy head lifts from its trough to nicker a greatly preferred welcome. 

“Hi, Rat,” she mutters, tracing a gentle hand down the white blaze that follows along the mare’s forehead to her muzzle. Byleth’s whisper of a voice is solely reserved for her alone.

It’s an unattractive name for a relatively attractive horse, but Byleth truthfully only has herself to blame for it. 

She’d been fourteen when they’d first bought her off of some farmer who couldn’t handle the nippy attitude the mare had been giving them - she’d never been properly broken in - and her father had been willing to risk a fair bit of gold for a fresh but bull-headed steed after his last gelding had proven to be easily spooked in battle.

She didn’t have a title outside of “horse” until they’d loaded her into a stable and Byleth was handling the lead and a startling pretty stablehand had asked after the mare’s name with a smile that struck her stupid. 

New to her sexuality and ablaze with excitable teenage butterflies, Byleth had caught sight of something that was, in hindsight, definitely a mouse scampering into the woodwork and confidently declared her  _ rat _ , of all things.

Her father never stopped teasing her following that, calling the horse out by the thoughtless name as loud as he dared whenever Byleth was within earshot until she was burning beet red from her ears down to her throat. It only became a real problem when the both of them fell into the habit so hard they couldn’t break loose; so Rat the mare officially became. 

Age and time stole away enough of her fire that she became even-tempered enough for Byleth to ride on her own without much trouble, and they slowly became attuned to one another; though she still thinks of the mare as her father’s horse. 

She isn’t, though. Not anymore.

Rat blows warm breaths along her face as she takes in the condition of Byleth and begins her daily routine in searching her over by scent for any treats that could be coaxed out of her owner. Byleth is weak-willed in the face of a begging horse, and her mare capitalized on it whenever she could. 

“Sorry,” she explains, pulling her pockets out to assure her that she’s not carrying anything a horse could have any interest in and instead offers a scratch to her neck. 

Byleth rubs small, counter-clockwise circles into the long fur on the mare’s withers as she guides her trepidatiously to the cross-ties before trudging off to collect her tack.

It’s apparent that she comes from some Faerghus coldblood line, with her thick pebble gray coat and tufted donkey-ish ears that swivel to follow Byleth as she stumbles back with her gear. She’s well-suited for the climate, it’s good at least one of them is. 

Byleth is nothing but careful when it comes to situating the tack. She can live as recklessly as she pleases, tumble headfirst down a rocky hill, take a sword to the shoulder, an arrow to the chest, catch fire, even, if it pleases someone, but nothing gets to happen to Rat; that’s the rule. 

She checks and then re-checks her noseband and girth before leading her over to a lonely crate that faithfully serves as a mounting block. She’d gotten her fair share of taunts for avoiding mounting from the ground, but Rat’s easing her way through a tenth year and doesn’t need the extra strain on her back. 

When she’s satisfied, Byleth urges the mare into a trot and they meet the scarce streets with a two-beat rhythm made audible by the iron and steel shoes Rat had been affixed with. 

The snow from the night before has been reduced to a light dusting, and though she has no faith that it’ll remain that way for even half the day, it makes her more comfortable with the ride even if she doesn’t intend for it to be a long one. 

It’s easier to settle frayed nerves when she’s in the saddle. Rat’s sweet on her to the point that she may as well be taking her own reins, and maybe if Byleth were a different person - like one of the gritty, shrewd equestrians or roughriders that would probably spit at the sight of her general mildness in all things regarding her mare - she might’ve found it embarrassing. She doesn’t though, Rat is her friend first, a horse second, and a bittersweet inheritance last of all. 

She needs to pass the apothecary to hit the city’s southernmost entrance - the only one she can say she has some idea of how to reach - and she doesn’t think anything of it until she remembers that if there is a Goddess, she’s been taking careful steps to ensure that Byleth trips in all of hers. 

That or she simply doesn’t know when the shop opens, because Edelgard is there unlocking the door when she nears and Byleth fights against every twitching urge she has to spur Rat into a gallop. 

It’s what someone of better sense might consider immature, but she tugs her hood up further until she can barely see the road in front of her much less the sides of her vision. It reminds her of the blinders carriage horses sport to keep their focus straight ahead, and that on its own is enough reason for her to feel risible, but it’s too early for her to have to look her consequences in the eye so she chooses a lesser damnation. 

She  _ thinks _ she’s gotten off cleanly with just the weight of a stare trained on her but that pretty notion is promptly shattered. 

“Is self-preservation a rejected concept with you, sellsword?” 

She flinches Rat into a halt and tilts her head just until she can make out Edelgard’s form against the washed-out background of the apothecary. 

_ “Hi.” _

“You get your back torn to shreds and not even a full day later you’re in the saddle?” 

They’re in the awkward position of Byleth being a few paces ahead of conversational and backpedaling means a commitment to the tongue-lashing she hears brewing behind the thin line of Edelgard’s patience that hasn’t yet had time to recover from the latest disaster Byleth had brought to her doorstep. 

Byleth lets a silence blossom in the distance neither of them move to close, the reins suddenly become a fascinating thing as she runs her thumb along the cotton.

She drops them and rubs at the back of her neck, a shrug that rises too high is all she gives. 

It shouldn’t be something that bothers her, because she’s brushed shoulders with humiliation more times than she could place a number to, but it stings at her all the same. She didn’t know what made it different here, why it felt worse for having demonstrated a clear weakness when it was practically expected of her. 

She doesn’t know what Edelgard thinks of her, but after two instances of making herself look stupid she doesn’t really need to guess at it for long. It  _ shouldn’t  _ matter, because she’s a stranger - albeit one that had stripped her of her shirt and likely saved her from a certain fate involving hemorrhage - but it does. 

That line of thinking is the salt sprayed across the wound, and she feels the whole of her posture react in kind, curling in more on herself; cowardly in the face of any opposition she couldn’t draw a blade on, apparently. 

_ “I can’t let her stay restless in the stables just because I messed up,”  _ she signs, which is a lie that would’ve been nothing but transparent if she were trying to vocalize it. She’d been sure to exercise Rat religiously and a few days missed wouldn’t have had much effect, but a little scratch or five weren’t going to keep her from her horse. If anything, Byleth’s the restless one and Rat’s humoring  _ her _ . 

If the lie holds, she doesn’t know. Edelgard doesn’t speak for a moment and both she and her mare grow anxious; Rat cocks a back leg and snorts while Byleth works her teeth against the inside of her cheek. 

“Do as you please, then.” 

There’s something beneath that statement, something more to it that stirs her chest uncomfortably and gets her to glance back at the apothecary. She’s already back to the lock, and once the door is opened it’s just as quickly closed - loudly - with the sort of implication that should Byleth try to press through it, sore stitches and a blushing face might be the least of her worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahaha I don't know what the hell I'm doing. :)
> 
> Definitely should've gone into this with more thought outside of "hehe grouchy lady with accent and incompetent mercenary go brrr" but y'know I'm gonna go ahead and consider myself committed to whatever mess I've gotten myself stuck in with this.
> 
> But just...lower your expectations nice and slow because this is sinking deeper and deeper into pure self-indulgence. 
> 
> Also I haven't touched anything remotely equine since I was ten so excuse any horse-related fuck ups.


End file.
